It has a small head and mouth, a body covered in easily removable silvery scales, and a tail with pointed lobes. It can reach a total length of 60 cm and weigh about 4 kg.
It lives in cold, well-oxygenated lakes, where it completes its entire life cycle. It moves in large schools that feed primarily on zooplankton (copepods and cladocerans), but also on benthic invertebrates such as mollusks, oligochaetes, isopod crustaceans, and dipteran larvae. In Lake Toblino, given the unique hydrological characteristics, the whitefish's diet is predominantly benthophagous, and amateur fishermen catch it with bottom-dwelling worms.
Sexual maturity is reached in the second year of life. Whitefish spawn in December-January, on the gravelly lake bottoms near the shore or near tributaries. Each female lays several thousand eggs, each approximately 2.5 mm in diameter. Hatching occurs after about a month.
Native to Lake Constance, the common whitefish was introduced into Lake Garda in 1918, where it has acclimatized. Today, this species provides a significant portion of the income for professional fishermen operating on the lake. Whitefish have been released into various lakes in Trentino on several occasions, using fry from the hatcheries in Peschiera and Cassone (Lake Garda). The flesh of this fish is prized and has a very delicate flavor.
Dialect: coregon, lavaret.
G. TOMASI, 2004 - The Three Hundred Lakes of Trentino. Ed. Artimedia – Temi, Trento, 535 pp.
